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> ... I cannot stop my brain thinking it's gambling. Without insider knowledge I don't understand how I could beat the market short term. That's a smart conclusion that's correct in the vast majority of cases. Day trading, especially as a retail investor, is mostly gambling. If you have funds to invest medium-to-long term, index investing using low cost, well-diversified funds really is the best thing you can do. Is it gambling? Year-over-year, an equity fund will certainly have wide swings up and down. However, since your horizon is long term, most people think that the market will be going up, averaged over the long term (a decade +). That is what the past has showed us. While past results are not a guarantee of future performance, it would be highly surprising for the market as a whole to do down, or even stagnate, for a period of 10+ years. Yes, people often cite Japan, that's exactly why I stated well-diversified funds above: limiting yourself to a single country can be risky. What is certain, is that if you are sitting on large sums of cash, inflation is eating away at it. You are actively losing money. |